From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id EFEE6BC8B for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 01:11:16 +0100 (CET) Received: from rproxy.gmail.com (rproxy.gmail.com [64.233.170.203]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id j1E0BFvH012316 for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 01:11:16 +0100 Received: by rproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id g11so1036465rne for ; Sun, 13 Feb 2005 16:11:15 -0800 (PST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:reply-to:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:references; b=t5KLKD1mT1rj7fnfeqYiztzwft0U60uhCPCAJHduX0cwd7DjsB9l5zw/3AN7zRdHnxVSIzbi+vfu4Dyfc1Ij94V55j3vgbKLXWIgFiX99/xUMynLVfrY1y8LCv9ShBOMu6/WjoG5zdqAWUJkXhT0Ddn3PUJD3BxPp4k9Ej3vAHQ= Received: by 10.38.151.41 with SMTP id y41mr20333rnd; Sun, 13 Feb 2005 16:11:15 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.38.86.80 with HTTP; Sun, 13 Feb 2005 16:11:15 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <877e9a1705021316114d4e10f0@mail.gmail.com> Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 19:11:15 -0500 From: Michael Walter Reply-To: Michael Walter To: Thomas Fischbacher Subject: Re: [Caml-list] The boon of static type checking Cc: Daniel Heck , caml-list@yquem.inria.fr In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <877e9a17050206221653d14456@mail.gmail.com> <200502131451.02231.edgin@slingshot.co.nz> <20050213112630.73930e19@hobbes> <877e9a1705021312525337a907@mail.gmail.com> <877e9a1705021314512ff095b9@mail.gmail.com> X-Miltered: at nez-perce with ID 420FECA3.001 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; caml-list:01 wrote:01 wrote:01 parser:01 syntax:01 syntax:01 compiler:01 ...:98 ...:98 faq:01 syntactic:01 explicitly:01 lisp:01 lisp:01 precisely:01 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.2 (2004-11-16) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=RCVD_BY_IP autolearn=disabled version=3.0.2 X-Spam-Level: On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 00:59:21 +0100 (CET), Thomas Fischbacher wrote: > > On Sun, 13 Feb 2005, Michael Walter wrote: > > > > > I feel I've mentioned that so many times it should be in some FAQ ;o) > > > > > > With a parser generator (take zebu, for example) and, say, > > > SET-DISPATCH-MACRO-CHARACTER, I just as well can give you any syntax you > > > want on top of lisp. But I think you understand if I don't post code > > > that explicitly demonstrates how to do that now. > > > > This has obvious restrictrions in Common Lisp (you even mentioned one > > of them in UPPERCASE-LETTERS :). > > You can just as well put another REPL at the top. MAXIMA is an example of > just one system that does precisely that. Exactly! That's creating a new language. > [...] > In particular, it certainly is > important to understand what syntactic conventions help human programmers > to express their thoughts. > [...] > So, again, syntax is not by itself an essential feature of the language. I rate the "human factor" important enough to consider it as an essential feature for programming languages meant to be used by humans. Of course, if you decide to use S-expressions primarily as a compiler target that's an entirely different issue (to bad that this path hasn't been explored that much, besides maybe Dylan). Michael